BREAKING NEWS

BREAKING NEWS

Outraged by recent letter

After reading the shameful comments in the letter “Let’s get Johnny fed in a responsible way” by Mr. Darrell G. Meyer, I wondered why it is so easy for some folks to bash poor folks as being lazy and gaming the system but they never utter a word against the rich and powerful who notoriously game the system?

When Mr. Meyer said “Jesus did not say take the other guy’s stuff and redistribute it to the poor” and then said “God will judge individuals by what each has done with his gifts he entrusted to each” I was outraged! If Mr. Meyer is going to wrap his comments around the Bible then I would advise him to reread the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritan didn’t ask the man laying at the side of the road if he had a job, smoked, drank, was a womanizer or lazy, he helped the stranger and asked no questions.

His comments about Jesus and God smacks of the new conservative twisted religious ideology called “The prosperity gospel” which means if you’re not successful than your not in God’s favor. Apparently religious conservatives missed the story about the rich man! If I am not mistaken, when the rich man asked Jesus how he could enter the kingdom of heaven Jesus replied “Sell all that you have and follow me.” The rich man hung his head and walked away. The moral of the story is that you cannot serve two masters; the albatross of wealth hanging around the rich man’s neck had a greater tug than subservience.

Apparently and glaringly Darrell’s lecturing to workers didn’t include the idea that a “living wage” would instill dignity to the worker. A living wage for all workers would lift all workers out of poverty. Dignity and self-worth are essential ingredients in shaping human behavior otherwise you have despair and defeatism to deal with. When most of the business community moans and groans over the prospect of an increase in the minimum wage that tells me one thing, dignity and justice for the worker means nothing to them.

Mr. Meyer and all employers should read the two papal encyclicals by Pope Leo XIII called “Capital and Labor” and Pope John Paul’s titled “Laborem Exercens.”

Not paying a living wage is theft and there is a lot of thievery going on in this supposedly Christian nation.